Strengthening public health emergency operation centers through data support
Bluesquare is delighted to announce the launch of a new intervention in four West-African countries : Niger, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon and Ivory Coast. Funding for the project is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The objective of this intervention is to provide operational tools and processes to these four countries. This aims to improve rapid and appropriate decision-making in health crisis contexts. This project will benefit from the technical advances on which Bluesquare invested heavily in recent years.
We are honoured to be part of a project that contributes to improve global health, one of our core values.
The intervention
Bluesquare is leading an intervention aimed at strengthening emergency operation centers (EOCs). This will occur by improving data management and data use across stakeholders and fostering health emergency preparedness through a sound use of data. Beyond providing EOCs with data management systems, the project leverages our solid engagement with IT teams in Ministries of Health. It promotes structural improvements for health information systems in these countries. The intervention will provide mapping of health facilities, geospatial data to enhance campaign planning and program monitoring (especially Malaria programs).
Data use is of particular importance to promote next-generation, results-driven health policies, delivering on the promises of technology in deprived socio-economic context.
Our intervention is structured around four main areas :
- COVID-19 data system integration,
- Malaria and Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) data system integration,
- Support the development of a Health Facility Registry,
- Support the setup of common geo-registries.
The data systems consolidation part of the project revolves around the implementation of a data integration platform. This platform is configured as an open-source data warehouse, combined with powerful analysis tools enabling the management, use and sharing of health data by different partners.
The module dedicated to the strengthening of Health Facility Registries and common geo-registries is a key component of our interventions to strengthen health systems in low and middle-income countries in the long run. It is essential for us to improve the geolocation of essential health information (like health facilities location, service availability, villages location, population estimates, etc.) in order to improve general health policies and emergency responses.
A collaborative project
Success will be achieved through close collaboration with the national authorities of the four partner countries (Ministry of Health, Statistical Institutes, authorities in charge of planning). But also with other non-governmental organisations and corporations working in the health sector in these countries. We are pleased to announce the successful start of this collaboration with national authorities in all four countries and active joint initiatives with other partners in our intervention.
Our goal, through the implementation of the data integration platform and support of the construction of an up-to-date digital health map, is to rapidly improve the general enforcement of health policies starting with the COVID-19 pandemic response, the Malaria elimination campaign and the improvement of mother and child health with possible extension to other priority topics in the future.
